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How mobile app data can be used to engage and retain customers

Mobile apps help to attract new customers, increase engagement and drive conversions, but this often requires the user to keep coming back.

Some in-app offerings will be enough to keep the user returning, but other times the users might need a little reminder to send them back to the mobile apps they may not have opened in a while.

According to data from Localytics, 22% of people who download an app only use it once. This means that marketers really need to be thinking about how they can attract their customers back to their mobile apps.

This thinking should go beyond just app downloads and focus more on value and engagement. This can be done in a number of ways, in terms of marketing, these can include push notifications, location-based services, in-app messaging and SMS.

Target your audience through user behaviour

It has never been more important for brands to monitor how their apps are performing to ensure the app is continually being improved and in turn, deliver the experience users expect.

By actively targeting consumers through their in-app behaviours and the data they provide, brands are able send users information that’s relevant and engaging.

As well as using mobile analytics, brands can also integrate their own CRM systems into mobile apps to help to even further understand user behaviour. This enables marketers to segment their users into different groups based on historical habits.

In a retail app for example, if a certain group of users always purchases books from a certain author, those users can be segmented and then delivered relevant messages on that author: an SMS with a discount on the author’s next title or perhaps a push notification letting the user know when the next title is available.

Marketers are missing out on a great opportunity to engage and retain if they aren’t taking the time to look at their mobile analytics and CRM data.

Many marketers just aren’t aware of the analytics tools available to them when it comes to mobile and it’s essential we are starting to think about how data can be segmented to really target our marketing strategies.

Relevant messaging

The key to getting mobile messaging right is giving consumers the information they want, when they want it and where they want it.

When a message is sent to a user’s device, whether it be a push notification, an in-app message or an SMS, it’s important to remember that their day-to-day activities are being interrupted.

If the message doesn’t add value to the user’s day or include a compelling CTA, they aren’t going to be drawn in. Quite the opposite in fact.

Below is an example of how O2 is using analytics data and acquired knowledge to give an improved customer experience, either through gaining new customers or engaging and retaining current customers.

O2 & HTK

With help from HTK, O2 recently used analytics to increase customer loyalty for its ongoing Priority Moments campaign. For those of you who aren’t O2 customers, Priority Moments offers its customers discounts and vouchers in local shops and restaurants and at local events using location services.

The real-time data on the recency and frequency of check-ins within the app.

How many and which type of offers customers had viewed and redeemed.

The locations of customers when they viewed and redeemed offers.

From this data, carefully targeted SMS messages with third-party offers were sent to O2 customers.

The customers were segmented into a number of different categories and in the ‘about to lapse’ category, i.e. those customers who hadn’t opened the app in the past 30 days, there was an 112% uplift in app check-ins.

This just goes to show that from carefully analysed data, marketers can send out targeted messages, which can not only retain customers, but also attract new users and engage current users depending on the marketing objectives.

Know your users

Mobile apps have the ability to collect vast amounts of information on users and this information should be used by marketers to deliver customers what they want, when they want it and where they want it.

It’s important for marketers to look at their analytics data with the aim of continual improvement. Marketers should adopt a test and learn approach by gathering data and feedback as they go along and learn what’s working and what’s not.

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the amount of data available but carefully segmenting the data will enable marketers to group together different user profiles and push out targeted content to the people who want to hear it most.

Mobile devices are always on the user; from the moment they wake up, to the moment they go to go to sleep, and this usage is only set to increase. This gives marketers real-time access to in-app user behaviours and preferences, as well as location history.

This, combined with existing CRM data, is helping marketers to understand consumers in a completely new way and marketers shouldn’t be missing out on the huge opportunity there is in the data within mobile apps.

Recommended

When conducting the design phase of any new website build (or redesign) the fundamental pillars of ecommerce simultaneously collide: digital and business strategy, user experience, usability, creative, branding, marketing, IT (infrastructure), and data/insights.

This collision is made difficult when contending with the varying opinions and views of multiple stakeholders. They all want to have a say on what is to be presented to consumers.

Normally the influence during design stage reverts to positional power within the organisation, with business goals overriding all others including the needs and goals of the consumer. Not anymore.

The purpose of this article is to shed light on how to properly utilise wireframes, how this tool maintains the integrity of the strategic plan and how it can simplify the implementation of the project, shorten timeline and reduce costs.

As a small business owner you’re in a great position to start exploiting social media for all its worth, adding much sought after personalisation and relevance at an integral stage of your development.

Although social media can be a fairly time consuming practice depending on how many platforms you choose to use, it’s also the key way for a small business to develop awareness, raise its profile, gauge its market and interact with existing and future customers.

As the UK is celebrating its first Small Business Saturday on December 7 2013, here is the second in a series of posts that takes a look at each individual social media platform in turn (last week we looked at Pinterest for small businesses) and highlights how you can achieve the best from each one.

Shazam announced today that it now has more than 400m users globally, driving 15m Shazams (or tags) every day.

This follows Shazam’s recent claims that it generates $300m in digital music sales every year, which is 10% of the digital music market.

It has been terribly busy today. The now leading media engagement company has also announced its ‘top Shazamed songs of 2013’ list, as well as its ‘top Shazamed artists of 2013’, ‘top Shazamed songs driven by television’ and ‘2014’s new artists to watch’ lists.

We’re in the land of startups this week, spending a day in the life of Ann-Marie Rossiter, Head of Marketing at events marketplace HeadBox. As usual, we’ll be finding out what it takes to succeed in this role, from skills and tools to the daily routine. If you’d like to appear in this feature, get […]